relevant internship for ER

Hey golfer thanks a lot for the comments.

One question, wouldnt WM allow me to be exposed to investments and probably allow me to analyse clients' portfolios and make investment recommendations? IMO this should be more relevant for ER, where employers are looking for candidates who are passionate about investing and public markets in general.

Correct me if I'm wrong thanks!

WM won't allow you to do that. However WM will give you access you ER reports so you'll be able to see some of the work ER analysts do every day.

Alright I see. Do you know how would employers view my WM experience? Would that plus the other stuff on my resume be sufficient to get me interviews at BBs and top AM firms like Fidelity? I'm fairly confident with interviews and Case studies so I'll be happy once I get them!

I would agree with the above -- depending on what the WM internship actually entails, it may not be at all what you think it would be. there are a lot of WMs out there who are not stock-pickers, or if they are are largely focusing on blue-chips for their client base.

If you know for a fact that you'll get some hands on analysis experience to supplement your in-school activities (which are good, by the way), then it could be a smart move. However, if you don't know that for a fact, you could spend your summer in a way that you really don't want to.

Also, as an intern, without the appropriate clearance via licenses, actually getting the opportunity to meet with a client would be challenging, and "voicing your opinion" on a stock for an investor may not actually happen. Please note that this is not in any way meant to be discouraging. If you think you'd be happier doing the PWM internship, by all means go ahead. I'm just voicing an opinion having gone down that road myself for an internship and now being in ER.

^^^ Agreed with above. As someone who works for a top PWM team and is looking to break into ER, everything that golfer23 has said is spot on. The corporate internship is going to expose you to the operations of the company and will allow you to gain some transfer skills that you might be able to leverage up when you start pursuing that entry ER role. in PWM, it is very hard to gain ANY transferable skills.

That being said a big benefit at least in my case is the access to the reports/conf calls and access to the company directory. The BB I work for has a massive ER team and I'm already doing informational interviews with associated/analysts

Thanks a lot for the inputs.

My main concern here is what my resume will look like after I complete this internship. Sorry for seeming superficial guys but IMO that's how employers are gonna judge whether this guy will get an interview, simply by looking at his/her resume.

For the finance and accounting internship, the bullet points I can think of putting on my resume are - assisted in 'finance-related work' within XXX teams/departments - supported Accounts team in ...... That's all I can think of now. IMO these aren't that impressive as they have almost zero relevance to ER.

For the WM internship, - analysed clients portfolios and recommended investment decisions - assisted director in preparing for client meetings Or stuff like that. I feel that these are more relevant to ER.

The above are just my opinions, so feel free to correct me in any way!

So in a nutshell, I do not think what I actually learn during the internship is that important. Instead, I feel that what I can show on my resume is more important, to attract employers. Having said that, I do feel that I will be able to learn quite abit from WM as I was told my job scope would be 1/3 investments and 2/3 meeting clients. Regarding transferable skills, I would think that WM would be superior to finance and accounting work?

One more question, what do you guys think of WM investment managers? Is it a tough role to get in for fresh grad?

Appreciate the comments! Thank you for your advice

what is a WM investment manager?

I think the consensus on here is that putting a WM internship on your resume is not going to attract ER attention. Your other school activities are more likely to be of interest to an employer than this internship. Most of the time, WM is more sales-related.

Also, on the transferrable skills comment, read the post above by Unforseen. WM is not the same as ER. The skill set that you will obtain from a few months in WM will not further you along in ER development. Seeing/reading reports isn't going to get you further along. Now, if you go the route of corp fin for the summer, say you are working on a project where the company is looking to build a new plant which would increase capacity by 15%, with debt financing. Getting to see how a company looks at this from an investment perspective, as well as the financial outcomes needed to be NPV positive can probably bring you great insight later when you are learning to build financial models and have justifications for your projections.

Someone once told me that if you start in the retail side of the business in any capacity, switching over to the institutional side will be significantly harder. If you want to be a financial advisor, then start in the retail side. But from what you've said, that's not what you're looking to do. I don't want to speak for the industry as a whole, but i know that I'd be much more interested in talking to someone who came from a corp fin internship than a PWM one, all else equal.

great answer, golfer. threw a silver banana along your way.

personally, i am musing doing between ER and IBD. had a couple of summer internship offers across ER, IBD and AM, and ended up taking up two. one is a BB rated top 3 by II last year, while the other was more controversial - it was doing strategic consulting in the world's largest AM firm.

I guess i chose that (over IBD) to get a perspective into buy-side, while doing work (i.e. consulting) relevant towards how a company looks at internal expansion and investment efforts.